Finished City Map Suggestions?

[Revivalofhonor]

Well hello guys, this is my first post here, and I just wanted to put up a city map I recently did for a city within a world called Alrdreia (which is the brain child of a friend Jharviss and I have been helping him on)

If anyone has any suggestions or comments ^_^ I'd love to hear them, more maps will be joining this one soon!

<Oh and I have to give credit to keithcurtis for the idea of randomly created geometric shapes just duplicated across the map, then going back and adding my own flavor to it.>

I'm also not sure if the forums have any sizing requirements on posting images in the forums so you'll have to let me know that to if there is

[Revivalofhonor]

hm buildings under the outer wall appeared in exporting, must be an issue with the masking, and am working to fix it

[palehorse]

A couple of things you might look at...

First, try cropping the whole image in closer to the city. You've got a lot of dead space around the edges there.

Because the forest inside the city perimeter is thicker, the pattern you've got on that layer is sticking out like a sore thumb. (The little white dots there, arranged in a grid, is what I mean.)

And (as just kind of a color geek kind of thing) you might consider bumping the contrast up overall to give it some pop.

[Revivalofhonor]

Thanks Palehorse for the suggestion, i've gone and adjusted a few minor things and applied some textures to the forests to try and remove some of the brushes repetitions. Anymore suggestions would be awesome

-Added texture to tree
-Added a clouded under effects to buildings to create slight color variations
-Increased the contrast slightly
-Cropped map in closer to city

[RobA]

Very nice job! I especially like how the stroke around the edge of the land looks "natural" and the detail of the the rocks (shoal?) off the south point.

What really jumps out at me is the perfection of the large walls. They look like slip-cast concrete as they are perfectly smooth and curved. Most walls would follow (and take advantage) of the terrain, and would usually break at the roads where there would be gates, I am thinking...

-Rob A>

[pyrandon]

Something else to think about: Where the roads & the buildings meet there is a a "haze" transition; I would imagine you have done some sort of outline or shadow to the roads, etc, but either way it is distracting--especially where some of the buildings are partly transparent--or where there are half buildings, etc.

Keep working on this. A nice map in process!

PS: I'm moving this thread from "Finished Maps" to "WIP/Critique", since that's what it turning out to be. I think Guildies will find it useful.

[RPMiller]

Just out of curiosity did you base this style off someone else's? It has a hint of Keith Curtis' maps.

[Revivalofhonor]

haha truly ive never really looked at other peoples maps, a friend pointed me to this guild recently where i got the idea for the random geometric shapes for building fill, but past that, thats about all i've looked at. my style tends fluctuate depending on the maps im working on

thanks for the comments and moving of the post!
~Alex

[Jharviss]

I would make the words stand out a bit more; the only word I can read without too much trouble is 'The Arena.' It took me a bit of time to realize what word is after 'Merchant.' Maybe just a light stroke or something to help make it more bold though without making it overwhelming.

[RPMiller]

Hm. While light I can read all the words just fine. It wouldn't be a bad idea to darken them up some, or as Jharviss suggests give them a darker outline. It is probably a gamma thing on the different monitors I would imagine.